horses.  But an application for work met with more favor.  Mr. Loving warned us of the nature of the country, the dangers to be encountered, all of which we waived, and were accordingly employed at forty dollars a month in gold.  The herd was to start early in June.  George Edwards returned home to report, but I was immediately put to work, as the junior member of the firm was then out receiving cattle.  They had established a camp, and at the time of our employment were gathering beef steers in Loving’s brand and holding the herd as it arrived, so that I was initiated into my duties at once.

I was allowed to retain my horse, provided he did his share of the work.  A mule and three range horses were also allotted to me, and I was cautioned about their care.  There were a number of saddle mules in the remuda, and Mr. Loving explained that the route was through a dry country, and that experience had taught him that a mule could withstand thirst longer than a horse.  I was a new man in the country, and absorbed every word and idea as a sponge does water.  With the exception of roping, I made a hand from the start.  The outfit treated me courteously, there was no concealment of my past occupation, and I soon had the friendship of every man in the camp.  It was some little time before I met the junior partner, Charlie Goodnight, a strapping young fellow of about thirty, who had served all through the war in the frontier battalion of Texas Rangers.  The Comanche Indians had been a constant menace on the western frontier of the State, and during the rebellion had allied themselves with the Federal side, and harassed the settlements along the border.  It required a regiment of mounted men to patrol the frontier from Red River to the coast, as the Comanches claimed the whole western half of the State as their hunting grounds.

Early in June the herd began to assume its required numbers.  George Edwards returned, and we naturally became bunkies, sharing our blankets and having the same guard on night-herd.  The drovers encouraged all the men employed to bring along their firearms, and when we were ready to start the camp looked like an arsenal.  I had a six-shooter, and my bunkie brought me a needle-gun from the ranch, so that I felt armed for any emergency.  Each of the men had a rifle of some make or other, while a few of them had as many as four pistols,—­two in their belts and two in saddle holsters.  It looked to me as if this was to be a military expedition, and I began to wonder if I had not had enough war the past few years, but kept quiet.  The start was made June 10, 1866, from the Brazos River, in what is now Young County, the herd numbering twenty-two hundred big beeves.  A chuck-wagon, heavily loaded with supplies and drawn by six yoke of fine oxen, a remuda of eighty-five saddle horses and mules, together with seventeen men, constituted the outfit.  Fort Sumner lay to the northwest, and I was mildly surprised when the herd bore off to the southwest.  This was explained by young Goodnight, who was in charge of the herd, saying that the only route then open or known was on our present course to the Pecos River, and thence up that stream to our destination.